
49
TUESDAY
November 7
After the Deluge (Gen. 9:18-29)
No matter the Lord’s gracious offers of peace, safety, and prosper-
ity or His warnings of judgment, destruction, and death, folk just don’t
seem to get it, do they? Of course, we don’t need Bible stories to prove
that point; after all, we have our own selves—and what more proof do
we need?
Read
over Genesis 9. After the Flood God establishes a covenant with
every living creature, promising never to destroy the world again
with a flood, even using the beauty of a rainbow as a token of His
promise. What story does God then immediately contrast with
this, His promise of this “everlasting covenant”? What messages
are in there for us? Also, what does it tell us that righteous Noah
(Gen. 7:1) should be so heavily involved in this sordid tale?
Noah’s words about his children were not forever sealing the fate of
posterity; rather, the incident seemed to reveal character traits already
there and how these traits, as they often are, would be passed down
from one generation to another. “The sin of Ham was not an uninten-
tional transgression. He may have seen his father’s shameful condition
accidentally, but instead of being filled with sorrow over his father’s
folly, he rejoiced in what he saw and found delight in publishing it. . . .
Ham’s two older brothers did not share his perverted feelings. Adam
also had had two well-disciplined sons, Abel and Seth, and one child
of sin, Cain. Although all had received the same parental love and
training, sin manifested itself much more markedly in one than in the
others. Now the same spirit of depravity breaks forth in one of Noah’s
children, while the older sons, reared in the same home and under the
same conditions as Ham, show an admirable spirit of decency and
self-control. As the evil trends of criminal Cain were perpetuated in
his descendants, Ham’s degraded nature revealed itself further in his
offspring.”—
The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 266.
Very often we are so concerned about our sins being forgiven,
which, of course, is important (Rom. 4:7, Eph. 1:7, Col 2:3,
1 John 1:9, 2:12).Yet, when you read the story of Noah doing some-
thing so bad here, what should that tell us about the importance
of how our actions,
especially the actions of those who have great
responsibility, can be fraught with negative consequences? What
can you learn from this about how our actions influence others
toward either the good or the bad? Think about some next big
decision you have to make. What will be its influence on others?